She shrugged. “It’s been a tough transition for you. I know.”
That was one of the things I loved about her. She was forever understanding.
“I just… there’s stuff at work…”
“I know.”
“I want to be part of your life again,” I whispered.
She stopped on the other side of the bed, so she stood directly across from me. Sadness in her eyes nearly made my knees buckle. Was that not possible anymore? Was that why she looked sad? She sighed, slipped off her flip-flops and pushed them just under the bed. So… she did still like that side.
“You did wonderfully with the girls today. I mean, Jackie’s really taken with you, and Riley too.” Her breath hitched. It was only a brief moment, and she continued on like it hadn’t happened, but I caught it. “They want to spend more time with you. That’s good. They should know their father.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
I paused, trying to collect the words for what I needed to say. I’d never needed to ask her this. I’d never felt like it was necessary. But I’d been gone a long time. “It’s been a while. Me being home, I mean. And I thought… well, I thought maybe we could try to get to know each other again.”
“Like what do you mean?” The anxiety I saw in her face matched my own. Her head lowered and she picked at her fingernails. That was one of the mannerisms I remembered.
I hated this. I could raid far away buildings, and fight my way through mortar fire and IEDs, and enemy combat zones and exploding buildings… but I couldn’t tell my wife just how much I missed her, and how much I needed to feel another human being—her—against me.
Heart to heart. Skin to skin.
“Like… whatever.” I mumbled the words. God I was so screwing this up. “I just… I missed…”
“You want to have sex.”
God Almighty. The bluntness of her words had my face flushing.
“Uh…” Words vanished. “I… no… I mean, well, yeah… But no. Maybe.” I groaned, sunk to the edge of the bed, and covered my face in my hands. “Forget I said anything.”
“Well, we…. I mean, we could…” Her voice was soft and tentative. Her presence as she stepped to me was overwhelming. “I mean, we’ve done it before.”
I chuckled. “I know. We have proof in the other bedroom.”
“I meant recently, smartass. Since you’ve been back.”
She took hold of my hands, her warmth surprisingly infusing my fingers. I raised my head so I could see her as she stood before me. Two years of missing her, of dreaming of her touch… Now that I had it, I didn’t want to let it go. I didn’t want to let her go.
I tugged at her hands, pulling her down toward me. She knelt between my legs, resting her hands on my thighs. I caressed her cheek, reveling in the softness of her skin. Hooking my finger beneath her chin, I met her eyes. I couldn’t decipher what was in them. A storm raged in them, some relief, some sadness, and maybe a little anger. It was too much to pinpoint exactly what she was feeling.
“You’re upset with me.”
“I’m not. Not really.”
“Not really is not a ‘no’ to me.”
“It’s not really you. It’s just me.” She broke eye contact and looked down where my other hand still held hers.
“Talk to me, Dev.”
“You first,” she shot back.
“Why is this weird for us? I mean, we’re married.”
“It’s a little like our first time, right?” Her face flushed.
“You mean, awkward and over really quickly?” My joke seemed to ease her some.
“Except in a bed, instead of the back of your pick up.” She grinned.
“There’s a reason why I don’t want to buy a new truck, Dev.”
She laughed, which lit up her entire face, but it only lasted a second. Something was obviously bothering her, and she didn’t really want to talk about it. Maybe she felt weird talking to someone she hadn’t seen in two years. But I wasn’t just someone. Devyn wasn’t just another person. She was my wife. My best friend.
“I don’t want this to be weird with you,” she whispered, looking back up to my face. “I want it to be like it was the other night, where it was natural.”
“Where you cried in my arms?”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I rubbed my hands down her arms. “Then maybe we shouldn’t force this. Let it happen on its own time?”
“But what if it doesn’t? What if the other day was an anomaly?”
“Do you think it was?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“We’re not going to die if we don’t have sex right this second, Dev.”
“Speak for yourself, Brody,” she shot back. She slid her hands from my thighs, up to my chest. “I need to know that we haven’t changed. That we still love each other, and that we’re still attracted to each other.”
“Is that what was bothering you today?”
“Somewhat,” she admitted. “There’s something not right between us. I can’t figure it out. It’s like a wall, blocking us from being as close as we were.”
Guilt slithered its way into my consciousness. Secrets. It was the secrets I was keeping. The things I couldn’t tell her, the things I longed to tell her, but I didn’t want her to get hurt. And if I told her, and she did end up getting hurt… I couldn’t bear it.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, and pulled her close. Part of me needed her near so I could protect her from the world.
“I think you should kiss me,” I said, grinning at her.
She narrowed her eyes at me, a playful sparkle in her eyes. “You’re all kinds of bossy tonight, aren’t you?”
“Nope. Because then I would have said ‘kiss me now’ instead of ‘you should kiss me.’ See what I did there? Ball is in your court.”
“I see.” She said, standing up. “Come here, then.” She grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet. She stepped close, so close the scent of her body lotion enveloped my senses and wrapped around my brain.
“Now who’s being bossy?”
She leaned toward me until she was almost touching me, our noses centimeters from each other. “I am.”
“Just the way—”
Her lips were soft and warm when they touched mine, wiping any thoughts I might have had clean out of my head. I tightened my arms around her waist, pulling her flush against my body. Her lips parted slightly. I slid into her delicious interior, caressing her tongue with mine. She was all warmth and so real, softness I’d missed in the harshness of my deployment. Her breasts pillowed against my bare chest, fitting her to me in just the right way.
Perfect.
I slid my palms over the round globes of Devyn’s backside, fisting the material of her baby blue robe in my hands. She pressed her lips hard against mine, her tongue plunging into my mouth like I wanted my cock to do between her legs. Slowly, I slid my hands up, taking the robe upward, exposing more of those tanned legs I’d dreamed of having wrapped around me for the last two years. I halfway expected her to push me away, but she didn’t.
“Brody…” she breathed as I stepped back, long enough for me to tug the belt of the robe apart. I slid the material from her shoulders so it pooled in a pile of fabric on the floor and took a moment to appreciate the body I had dreamt of for so long. Her auburn hair covered the soft satin blue cups over her breasts. A slim waist, one hardly indicative of a mother of twins, flared out into gorgeously curved hips. No, she wasn’t the ninety-pound cheerleader she had been before we’d gotten married. Now, she had beautiful smooth lines, accompanied by soft flesh I could really grip.
The candles set her in a soft orange glow, creating shadows over curves I couldn’t wait to feel against me. I needed to touch her, feel her, see her. I wanted to rip off all her clothes. Her bra. Her panties. Eventually, real life would intercede and I’d have secrets from her again, but for right now, I wanted nothing betw
een us.
She stepped back from me, her fingers trembling. Her hands twisted around to her back, where a snap of her fingers let go of the restraint around her boobs. The straps loosened, falling down her shoulders and catching at her elbow. She straightened her arms, let the bra fall to the ground.
The tension in her body curled around her muscles, seizing her. I turned her so she faced the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and rested my hands against her arms. “Do you know what I see here?”
She blushed, but followed my line of sight to the mirror. “What?”
“My beautiful wife. Her gorgeous body,” I whispered against her ear. I ran the back of my hand along her cheek, then her neck. She shuddered, goose bumps appearing over her naked flesh. I leaned over and kissed the hollow of her neck, trailing kisses to her shoulder.
I knew she was feeling self-conscious, and I knew a large part of that was my fault. But I wanted her to know how much she meant to me, even if I couldn’t tell her all my secrets. My hands slipped to her waist, gripping that area before her waist flared into her hips. She leaned back against me, my fingertips tightening at her hips. I wanted her. I needed her.
Chapter Fourteen
‡
Devyn
“Do you know what I see here?” Brody’s voice was low, soothing, slowing my racing heart.
I glanced in the mirror, already feeling the heat of the flush as he gazed upon my naked body. “What?”
“My beautiful wife. Her gorgeous body,” he whispered against my ear, velvet vibrations soothing over my skin. “You’re beautiful.” He didn’t have to say these things, and yet he kept doing it. And I still doubted it. His large hand splayed out across my stomach while his other smoothed down across my hip and dipped into my panties.
I dropped my head against Brody’s shoulder, a small moan slipping from my lips. I was already wet for him. I think I existed in a steady state of arousal for him. All he had to do was touch me, and I’d want him. The awkwardness I’d felt earlier vanished as his full attention focused on me, my arousal amplified by the storm firing in his eyes.
“Oh, Brody…” That was about all I could muster to say before he turned me around and plundered my mouth. He thrust his tongue into my mouth. I clung to his shoulders, like he was my lifeline as his arms tightened around me. There was something beautiful about this moment, so certain and clear. All I saw or smelled or tasted was Brody. He touched every inch of me, so impossibly deep into my soul there was nothing I could do but let him take me along for the ride.
He backed me to the bed, never relenting his kiss. I dragged in air as he released me to unbutton his pants and let them fall to the floor.
“No underwear?” Was that my voice cracking? He’d gone all day without underwear.
The grin he gave me was pure evil and sex personified. “I threw it all out on my way out of the country. They were gross.”
“I could have bought you some. I went to the exchange a few days ago.”
“It would just be an extra layer of clothing between me and you,” he replied with a shrug.
“Oh, man…” I groaned. My body ached with desire, with want. “That shouldn’t be hot.” Actually, if I thought about it…
Nah. Not going to think about it.
He chuckled and his arms tightened around me. He pulled me to the mattress with him, flipping us so his hard body covered mine. Sheer heat emanated from him, turning my body on fire. Keeping himself up on his elbows, so the bulk of his weight wasn’t on me, he kissed me again. His amber eyes bore into mine as he said, “I missed you.”
I was speechless at his confession, unable to verbalize even the slightest sound. But he didn’t want a response. He lowered his head to my neck, dropping kisses along my heated skin. His lips touched all around my neck and collarbone until he had left no inch untouched by him. His tongue ran around the curve of my breasts, circling around my nipple before drawing it into his mouth. I gasped, gripping his short hair in my fists. I wanted—needed—him closer.
Beyond us, the house was silent, only the soft sound of the ocean breeze as it whipped by the window. Leaves rustled beyond us, outside the window that bathed us in moonlight. There was nothing but us around, nothing but the soft sound of our breaths together.
He rose over me, more like my old Brody than the new one I didn’t know. The muscles in his arms and chest flexed with each movement. For a moment there, only the two of us existed.
But the drawn-out squeak of the hinges sent ice into my veins. Panic made me dizzy, the thought of the girls getting out of their cribs so artfully quiet sent me scrambling to cover myself. But instead of one of the girls, our striped Siamese/Himalayan cat slinked into the room like she owned it. Both of us exhaled noisily. I was only half covered, and Brody was completely naked.
I breathed out, my stomach returning to my body from where it had shot up.
“Toad!”
The cat glanced up at her name, like we’d intruded on her space. Relief blossomed in my chest, followed by intense mortification. What if it had been one of the girls? What if they’d walked in on their parents having sex?
Panic had left me bereft of energy, and I’d lost the moment. I stood up and retrieved my lost robe from the floor and cinched it shut. More panic was on its way to enveloping me, fear that I couldn’t control. My body shuddered. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so upset. We couldn’t be the first parents to almost get caught having sex by their children, but this just felt different.
“Devyn, don’t pull away…” Brody pleaded.
I took a breath. “I can’t….” There shouldn’t have been that fear sitting at the bottom of my stomach. I mean, Brody and I were a married couple. It just so happened that we hadn’t seen each other in two years. But we’d known each other so well before now… Unfortunately, it was obvious that neither of us were the same people anymore.
I lifted the cat in my arms, as if Toad would protect me from my own husband.
“Devyn, talk to me.” Brody stood, but I turned away from him, because if I looked at him, all I would see would be his magnificent body and I’d want to stay and I couldn’t just stay there for physical reasons. I needed to know that he loved me, and in that moment, I just wasn’t sure.
“I’m… I think I’m going to sleep downstairs. I just… I can’t do this.”
“Please don’t go like this, Devyn. Talk to me.” He blocked the doorway and surprisingly, he had on a pair of work out shorts. I didn’t even see him put those on.
“I can’t.” Water rushed to my eyes as he gripped my arms.
“We don’t have to do anything. We could just sleep. But I’d love to know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
I stared at him, tears sliding down my cheeks. The cat complained in my arms, and wriggled her way free. She jumped to the floor, and like the treacherous being she was, vanished from the room, leaving me alone. Her little footsteps scrambled down the stairs beyond our bedroom.
“Devyn.”
“It’s not you, Brody. It’s really not. I’m just… This isn’t working for me.”
“What? Sex?” He froze, dread filling his expression. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “Or us?”
I adored Brody. I loved every damn inch of him. But something wasn’t right between us, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I’d only ever been with Brody. I only ever wanted to be with Brody. He was my lifetime sweetheart. My soul mate. So was it the sex that was weird to me? Or was it the difference I saw in my husband from who he used to be?
“Honestly? I don’t know, Brody.”
His face fell, and his hands followed suit, releasing me. He stepped back like I’d just slapped him. “I see.”
“I’m scared, Brody.”
“Of me?” Instead of the sadness I’d seen in his eyes, his voice came out cold.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly, Dev? Because I’m really trying here.”
“Do you think that I like this? Do you think that I like having to keep things from you because of my job? Do you think that I like that I’m constantly worried, that this stupid operation is in my head and it never ends?”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have the words to reply. I couldn’t tell him anything to make it better. He stepped close, his index finger pointing directly at me.
“I do my job because that’s how you stay safe, Dev. That’s how I keep the girls safe. Is it the job? Or is it that you don’t love me anymore? Be honest, Devyn. Because I deserve that much.”
The lump in my throat built to an intolerable level until it was difficult to breathe or speak. But I forced it back down. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Brody. I’m just… I don’t know how to deal with you anymore.”
An eyebrow quirked upward, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Deal with me? I never wanted you to deal with me, Devyn. I only wanted you to love me, to understand that I have to keep secrets in order to keep my family safe.”
Boy, I felt like a rat. None of that was how I wanted him to think. But the more I talked, the less happy he was. I glanced away from him. “I’m sorry.”
He reached for me, but I pulled away, out of reach. “Devyn…”
“You’re right. I should be more supportive of you.” I stepped around him to the door. My hand on the doorknob, ready to turn. I turned back to him. He met my eyes, and I wished he hadn’t. They were so vulnerable, so full of pain and fire. Pain that my rejection of him had caused. Guilt made my heart ache. “But right now, it hurts too damn much.”
What was really happening to us? Both of us were holding each other distant, not letting the other close. We both built that wall between us, and now it was growing on its own and getting fortified. We’d never had a problem communicating to each other before, but maybe not spending much of our married life together was eating away at us. And in all honesty, that made me more than a little sad.
SEALs of Summer: Military Romance Superbundle - Navy SEAL Style Page 74